Sisters Part 1

Sisters.

by Ada Cambridge.

CHAPTER I.

Guthrie Carey began life young. He was not a week over twenty-one when, between two voyages, he married Lily Harrison, simply because she was a poor, pretty, homeless little girl, who had to earn her living as a nondescript lady-help in hard situations, and never had a holiday. He saw her in a Sandridge boarding-house, slaving beyond her powers, and made up his mind that she should rest. With sailor zeal and prompt.i.tude, he got the consent of her father, who was glad to be rid of her out of the way of a new wife; took the trembling, clinging child to the nearest parson, and made her a pensioner on his small wages in a tiny lodging of her own. They honeymooned for a fortnight, off and on, as his ship could spare him--the happiest pair of mortals in the wide world--and then parted in tears and anguish unspeakable for the best part of a twelvemonth.

He came back to find himself a father. Wonderful experience for twenty-one! Never was such a heavenly mystery of a child! Never such an angelic young mother!--eighteen, and with the bloom of that most beautifying convalescence like a halo about her. He was first mate now, with a master's certificate and a raised salary; it was time to make a home. So while she nursed the baby in Sandridge--with the aid of a devoted friend, the landlady's cousin--Guthrie Carey busied himself across the way at Williamstown, fixing up a modest house. He also had a devoted friend, in the person of a Customs officer, whose experienced wife took charge of the operations. Lily was to see nothing until all was ready for her. It was to be a "pleasant surprise".

The last touches had been given--tea put in the caddy, meat and b.u.t.ter in the safe, flowers in the vases. Mrs Hardacre, in her best gown, spread a festive supper-table, and Bill, her spouse, stood by with a Government launch to take the proud young husband to his wife, and to bring them back together.

Lily awaited him, trembling, tearful, wild with the joy of going home.

Her step-mother had come to Sandridge to see her off, and had brought her a present of a macintosh, on the merits of which she dilated with fervour as she twirled it round and round.

"b.u.t.tons right down to the feet," she urged persuasively, "and cape hanging below the waist"--the second Mrs Harrison was a big woman. "You might go through a deluge in it. And so stylish, my dear! You can wear it when you go out in threatening weather of an afternoon, and be quite smart."

"Well, it's pretty threatening now," said Guthrie uneasily. "I don't know that it wouldn't be wiser--"

"Oh, no, no!" Lily implored. "No trains tonight! No way but this, Guthrie. I can't get wet--in this nice waterproof. I don't care how it blows--the more the better--with you with me."

"But baby?"

"We can keep him safe. He is going to be rolled in your 'possum rug. We can take him inside if it is cold. Oh, we MUST go by sea, Guthrie!"

"Call this sea?" he mocked.

It was sea to her, who had never been beyond the Heads. She expected to concentrate in the fifteen-minutes' trip across the bay the interest of years of travel on land. There was nothing like blue water to this sailor's wife, whose heart had been upon it for so many anxious months; the extravagance of her partiality was the joke of husband and friends against her.

"All right," said Guthrie; "come along, then!"

He was impatient to get her away from these people, and under his own roof.

The second-hand macintosh was again pressed upon her.

"Oh, thanks--thanks! But I think I won't put it on just yet, as it is not raining. My dress is warm."

Her dress was the wedding dress--chosen for use as well as beauty--a delicate pink stuff, with a watered sash to match, in which she looked like a school-girl on breaking-up day. She had a fancy to go to her home in state, and also to make an appearance that would do her husband credit before Mr and Mrs Hardacre.

"Here is your fascinator, my dear," said the motherly landlady, offering the wisely-selected subst.i.tute for Lily's hat. "Let me tie it on for you--there!"

The fascinator of white wool, made and adjusted properly, accounts for its name; and Guthrie was sure that he had never seen a lovelier picture than his darling's face in that soft frame. She was ready now--as ready as she meant to be until the Customs launch had seen her--and turned to pick up the large bundle that had the little baby in the middle of it.

"I'll carry him, Lily."

"No, no, Mr Carey, I'm going to carry him," said the landlady's cousin, a strapping young woman, whose arms were equal to the task--"as far as the boat, at any rate."

She did so, the elder ladies supporting her on either side. Guthrie and Lily led the procession, hand in hand.

Ah, how like another world it was, coming out upon that breezy platform from the gutter-smelling streets! And how royal a proceeding it seemed to Lily to be, the setting apart of a Government vessel solely and entirely to convey her to her new abode, as if she were a little queen going to her husband's kingdom. She could not help holding herself with dignity, if not with a trifle of vaingloriousness, as, between half-a-dozen eager hands and admiring eyes, she stepped down into it.

"Now, have you got everything?" the landlady called from the pier. "Oh, everything--everything in the world!" Guthrie shouted, in reply.

"Where's your waterproof, Lily?" screeched the step-mother. "Better put it on, my dear; and I'd advise you to sit under cover, both of you.

You'll be drenched if you don't, in this wind. Why, Mr Hardacre, it's blowing a perfect gale!"

"A bit fresh, ma'am," Bill admitted; "just enough to keep us lively.

All aboard, Mr Casey? Pa.s.s the word, sir, when you're ready."

"Ready!" called Guthrie. And then he said something to the men, Bill Hardacre and his mate Dugald Finlayson, about having everything on board--all his life and happiness, or something to that effect--at which they laughed and chaffed him as the launch backed from the pier, and started off in the tearing hurry characteristic of Customs boats.

Lily was in the cabin with the baby and the landlady's cousin, who had 'got round' Mr Hardacre to give her a return pa.s.sage, after seeing the little family safe home. Husband and wife had frowned at the suggestion of having her with them on the launch, but when they had shut her in out of sight and hearing, and found themselves free to follow their own devices untrammelled by their child, they did not mind so much.

"Hadn't you better--?" Guthrie began, when his wife reappeared, clinging to the door-jamb; but she exclaimed again:

"No, no! Let me be outside with you!" She wanted to feel "at sea" with him, to bathe herself, under the shelter of his protection, in the magnificent, tempestuous, inspiring night. To her, cooped up all her life in streets and prosaic circ.u.mstances, there was something in the present situation too poetical for words. No bride who had married money, and was setting out by P. & O. upon her luxurious European tour, could have been more keenly sensible of the romance of foreign travel than she, crossing Hobson's Bay in a borrowed Customs launch; while the squally darkness surrounding and isolating her and her mate immeasurably enhanced the charm. "I want to see it--to feel it!" she pleaded. "The air is so clean and fresh! The sea is so grand tonight!

How beautiful it smells! Guthrie, I must have been born for a sailor's wife--I love it so!"

"Of course you were," the sailor a.s.sented heartily. "No manner of doubt about that. Well, sit here, if you prefer it, sweetheart"--on the stern grating--"only mind you don't catch cold. And don't let us get that pretty frock spoiled before the Williamstown folks have seen it."

He steadied her while she stood to have the big macintosh drawn closely about her--the round cape, flapping far and wide in the rough wind, was like an unmanageable sail, he said--and when she was again seated, he tucked it about her knees and feet. b.u.t.tons being hard to find and fasten, he pulled the two fronts of the garment one over the other across her lap, and she sat upon the outer one. Then he readjusted the white fascinator, winding the fluffy ends round her neck, and finally encircling all with his stalwart arm. There she sat, resting against him, her left hand in his left hand, her contented eyes shining like stars in the dark. They were practically alone in s.p.a.ce, their deck companions having thoughtfully turned their backs and made themselves as remote as possible.

A long sigh fluttered through Lily's parted lips from her surcharged heart. Guthrie heard it through all the clamour of the gale--for it really was a gale--and the noise of the screw and fiercely snorting funnel. He stopped his face to hers.

"Tired, pet?"

"No," she murmured, "oh, no!"

"What, then?"

"Only happy--PERFECTLY happy."

"Same here," he said, careless how he tempted Fate--"only more so."

Their lips met, and were holding that sweetest kiss of lovers that are man and wife, when a wave, driven by the wind, flung a shower of spray at them, giving each a playful slap of the face as a hint not to be too confident.

"Hadn't you better get inside?" he urged, as he wiped her cheek. "It'll be rougher still directly."

"Oh, no, it's splendid! The rougher the better. I'm so glad it's rough.

I can't take any harm, so well wrapped up, and with you, my husband."

"Ah, Lil!" The hug he gave her in acknowledgment of the word made her gasp for breath. He was so carried away that he had to use both arms, whereby a lurch of the boat nearly unseated him. "Never," he declared, in an intense whisper--"never shall you come to harm, my precious one, while you've got me to protect you; I can promise you that."

"Dear," she returned, in the same kind of tone, "I know I never shall."

And she cuddled closer up to him, and he took a firmer grip of her.

There was no rail for either to hold to, and drawing out from the shelter of the pier, and meeting the force of the southerly swell, the launch had begun to dance like a cork on boiling water.